Part 37 (2/2)
You have caught, as I might say, the note. Now I myself have great difficulty in being literary and at the same time catching the note.”
There was something in the little man's confession--so modest, so generous withal--which drew tears to her eyes, though her own elation may have had some share in them.
”Though there's one thing she've forgotten,” said Mr. Salt, with a twinkle. ”My poor Sarah will get shock enough over this letter as 'tis; but she'll get a worse one if we leave out the money order.”
The order having been made out in form, ready for him to take to the post office, Mr. Salt bade farewell. They could hear him extolling, on his way through the outer office, the talent of the operator within.
”I feel like a dentist!” whispered Hester, turning to Mr. Benny with a smile. The little man was looking at her wistfully.
”Shall I call in the next?” he asked. ”I am afraid, my dear, you are finding this a longer job than you bargained for.”
”But I am enjoying it,” she protested. ”That is, if--Mr. Benny, you are not annoyed by his foolish praises?”
”My dear,” he answered gravely, ”they say that all literary persons are jealous. If I were jealous it would not be because Mr. Salt praised you, but because my own sense tells me that you do better than I what I have been doing for twenty years.”
”If you feel like that, I won't write another letter,” declared Hester.
”That would be very foolish, my dear. And now I will tell you another thing. Suppose that this discovery hurt me a little, yet see how good G.o.d is in keeping back all these years until a moment when my heart happens to be so full of good news that it forgets the soreness in a moment; and again, how wise in gently correcting and reminding me of weakness when I might be puffing myself up and believing that all my good fortune came of my own merit.”
”What is your good news, dear Mr. Benny?”
”You shall hear later on when I have told my wife.”
More than an hour later, having dismissed her clients (for the last of whom she had to compose a love-letter, the first she had written in her life), Hester stepped across to the cottage to announce that her work was over and ask if she might now turn down the lamps and rake out the stove.
The Bennys' kitchen at first glance was uninhabited; and yet, as she opened the door, she had heard voices within. Dropping her eyes to a lower level, she halted on the threshold and would have withdrawn without noise. In the penumbra beyond the circle of the lamp and the white tablecloth Mr. and Mrs. Benny, Nuncey, and Shake were kneeling by their chairs on the limeash, giving thanks.
While Hester hesitated, the little man lifted his head, and, catching sight of her, sprang to his feet. ”Step ye in, my dear, and join with us!
For you, too, have news to hear and be thankful for.”
”But tell me your own good news and let me first be thankful for that.”
”Do'ee really feel like that towards us?” asked Nuncey, rising and coming forward with joy and eager love in her eyes.
”I ought to, surely, after these months of kindness.”
”Well, then--but first of all I must kiss 'ee, you dear thing!--well, then, Dad's been offered Damelioc stewards.h.i.+p, and you're to be Mistress of the Widows' Houses, and we're all going to be rich as Creases for ever and ever, Amen!”
”Croesus, my dear--besides, we're going to be nothing of the sort,”
protested her father.
Nuncey swept down upon him, caught him in her strong embrace, implanted a sound kiss on the top of his head, and held him at arms' length with a hand on either shoulder.
”You're a dear little well-to-do father, and the best in the world.
But oh! you've come nigh breaking my heart these three months--for a worse regrater there never was, an' couldn' be!”
”Upon my word,” said Mr. Benny, glancing over her shoulder at Hester with a twinkle, ”I seem to be getting good fortune with a heap of chastening.”
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